Five Firsts: Ratchet and First Aid
by Jarakrisafis
Summary: Five Firsts between Ratchet and First Aid
1. First Meeting

Continuity: G1 Ratchet & First Aid: Five Firsts

I winced as I stood hesitantly outside the Autobot medbay listening to the yells from within. All the tales from last night in the rec room weren't helping. We, I and my gestalt mates, had been cajoled into going by a friendly black and white mech called Jazz. It had been fun, well, maybe a bit loud and the mechs a bit rowdy, but no where near as overwhelming as I had expected.

Then somebot had found out I was apprenticing to Ratchet which started a whole round of increasingly outrageous stories about my new boss. I hadn't believed most of them, after all it was expected that they tell me horror stories right before I start. But right now I am wondering if it's too late to be reprogrammed into a new function.

Tentatively peering around the door I cringed as the two bots inside noticed the movement and turned my way.

"If you are not extinguishing, close to extinguishing, or in any way about to extinguish, slag off."

"Uhhhm, actually sir, I'm First Aid."

The red and white medic visibly reset his optics. "Thought you'd be taller, well, come in, I don't bite."

"Much." The second mech added, ducking almost immediately to avoid the welder that soared over his helm.

"Just for that I'll leave your self repair to deal with the dents."

The grey, green and orange mech didn't seem anywhere near my level of horrified as Ratchet abandoned his patient and stomped into his office, or so the sign proclaimed. Although whoever had created it had used the nickname I had heard a few times last night, the elegant calligraphy claiming the room to be 'Hatchet's office'. Several lines of graffiti had been added below in various different scripts, none of them all that reassuring; 'Beware of low flying wrenches', 'twin free zone', 'my medbay - my rules', and 'all loitering twins will be reformated without warning', were amongst the most memorable.

"His bark's worse than his bite, as the humans say." The grey mech said as he stretched out his joints, ignoring the blackened and peeling paint etched across much of his right side.

"I heard that 'Jack, get your aft out of my medbay, and tell Perceptor that if he wants to fiddle with one of your inventions he has to warn you when to duck as well as himself."

"Sure thing Ratch." One optic flashed of in a quick wink at me before he sauntered out of the room.

"Well, are you going to stand out there all morning?" The disembodied voice floated out of the office. Although it held none of the snark that had been used to address the other mech I still found myself carefully cycling several vents of air before resolutely stepping towards door.

At least if nothing else I'll be able to out perform the rest of my gestalt in the obstacle avoidance course Commander Prowl has insisted we all take.


	2. First Lesson

Continuity: G1 Ratchet & First Aid: Five Firsts

"You need to be looser; it only needs a light touch."

I frowned as I relaxed the cables in my wrist. "Like this?"

"Bit tighter, you don't want it to slip out of your hand."

"You make it look easy."

Ratchet grinned. "Practice."

I hefted the spanner again and lined it up, trying to get a feel for it before I used it.

"Better." Ratchet said when I finally let go. "Time to take a break I think, you're not used to this."

I stretched my arm out, feeling the gears and servos in my wrist clicking as they relaxed from the near cramp.

Inspecting my work Ratchet smiled. "A definite improvement."

"What's an improvement?"

Ratchet gave Wheeljack a shrug of his shoulder plating. "Just a couple of things I've been showing Aid."

Whatever Wheeljack was about to say in response was cut off as a shiny red mech hurtled through the doors yelling something incomprehensible to latch onto Ratchet with a flying leap. Only the medics greater mass preventing them from ending up on the floor as the mech muttered something about 'Ironhide' 'cannons' 'pink' and 'save me'.

Wheeljack managed half a step towards Ratchet before turning incredulously back to me.

I shrugged, a second spanner held in my other hand.

"That's my mech." Ratchet said with a proud smirk as he stepped over the now offline warrior slumped on the floor. "I told you all it would take was practice."

We both politely ignored Wheeljack finally noticing the target painted on the wall and the dents surrounding it before he mumbled an excuse and fled.

I looked at Ratchet as the door slid shut, only to find him doing exactly the same, both of us collapsing into laughter at Wheeljacks horrified expression.


	3. First Life Saved

Continuity: G1 Ratchet & First Aid: Five Firsts

"Is it always like this?" I asked as Ratchet paced around the medbay, wincing whenever he put too much weight onto his bad leg, courtesy of a Decepticon sharpshooter in the last skirmish that had cracked his femoral strut. Despite being mostly healed it left him off the frontlines and stuck in his own medbay, slowly attempting to wear a hole in the floor as he paced. But misery loves company or so the human saying goes; I was also restricted to the base due to having just had some more medical upgrades installed.

Thus it was just Hoist out in the line of fire and Ratchet was worrying and fretting as he listened in on the medical commline. So far nothing had been bad enough to call in, just small patches that he could deal with in the field.

"It's too quiet." Ratchet finally said as he stopped pacing to come stand behind me, watching as I reordered our tools for the third time.

"Isn't quiet a good thing?" I'd never been in here during a battle, only afterwards to help with patching up. Defensor was apparently much more useful on the battlefield than I was in the medbay until my apprenticeship was complete, thus I only got back when the worst of the injuries had been seen to. Not that I was complaining, I've barely finished my basic medical training, let alone started on the advanced field medicine and surgical techniques that Ratchet insisted I needed to know.

"Quiet means something bad is going to happen." His words were almost prophetic as several commlines came to life at once, yells to 'watch out' and 'take cover' coming in from several different sources.

The only good news seemed to be that whatever had happened had been indiscriminate as the 'cons were pulling back.

:Ratch, Aid, prep for incoming.: The comm. fell silent, no doubt as he assessed the injuries. :Eleven driving wounded, three critical but stable, one critical, spark fluctuating. ETA one breem:

"That's not good." I said as Ratchet cursed, pulling machines over to the berth furthest from the door. We didn't need to be bowled over by mechs entering and leaving if we were busy.

I set up a spark containment unit just in case it was needed, finishing as Prime hurtled around the corner, an energon coated frame in his arms, Hoist close on his heels.

"Here Prime." Ratchet said, scanning before the frame had touched the berth. "Aid, I'll need your help, Hoist see to the other three, anyone else is to remain outside unless it's something that Wheeljack can deal with. Prime, with respect, get out."

I took a quick look at the mech on the table, energon already pooling beneath the frame and dripping onto the floor and had to clamp down on my fuel tanks instinctive reaction to heave.

"Easy Aid." Ratchet brushed his hand over my arm before continuing to set up an energon feed directly into an energon line running into the spark to stop it from extinguishing from energy depletion. "Focus. Just like I've taught you."

Except this time failure would be a lot more permanent than a hologram shutting down and there was no room for errors, I wouldn't be able to go back and try again.

"I..."

"Get the armour off and start patching energon lines; he's loosing energon quicker than we're replacing it." His voice was calm, settling my pulsing spark, giving me somewhere to start. I cycled a quick vent of air, looking objectively at the crumpled armour. It seemed to be some form of projectile weapon or shrapnel damage that had punched through the armour and torn into the wiring beneath.

Finding the biggest of the holes I started to lift the surrounding armour, parts of it having to be cut free, the whine of my buzzsaw making me cringe.

Reaching for the first line I began to relax. I could do this. Find a damaged line, splice the two ends if it had been cut and bind the split. I could ignore the smaller lines that were already sealing as self repair functions struggled to keep up with demand.

I was almost done and ready to move onto the next area when the alarms on the monitors started to wail.

"Slag. Aid, get the rest of the armour off." Ratchet said before I had worked out what the display was telling me. "Chassis temperature is rising, the coolant system has been compromised somewhere." He already had his saw powered up, stripping armour with a quick efficiency.

"I've got it." A small bit of the shrapnel had lodged in one of the secondary coolant pumps. I had almost missed it, even when looking and from the way Ratchet's face was twisting as he leant over to see for himself it wasn't good.

"Cut the coolant tubes before and after the pump and splice in a bypass line." He said, moving back to extracting debris from around the spark chamber.

All the texts I had been given to read said that rerouting things like that shouldn't be done. "Sir? That..."

"If you can find a new pump, feel free to replace it." He snapped as I shakily grabbed a length of tubing.

Even he was stripped down to his component systems, the redundant parts he usually carried being used quicker than they could be replaced, and of course I was still undergoing my upgrades to allow my systems to handle the excess of parts.

"Done." I said as the monitors stopped shrieking at me, the coolant once again flowing, allowing heat to be conducted from the internal components to the surface rather than letting things slowly melt and fuse together into one large metallic mess of internals.

"Spark chamber is clear of any shrapnel." He glanced over at the monitor. "Energon levels are rising."

Finally. I'd almost lost count of how many different lines I'd put back together. It was about time the energon started staying inside rather than draining right back out.

"Stay here and monitor him, if anything changes, yell. I'm going to go give Hoist a hand."

He moves around to my side of the berth as I grab a stool and sit down, only realising now how much my hands are shaking as he clasps them in his. "You did fine Aid. You did fine." He gives my hands a last squeeze before he strides away, leaving me with our patient.

Grabbing a rag from my subspace I start to clean him up, if he's going to survive then I doubt he'll want to wake up caked in dried energon.


	4. First Life Lost

Continuity: G1 Ratchet & First Aid: Five Firsts

I flinched when Ratchet snarled over the commline, only my hands remaining steady as I closed of fuel lines.

"Hurts." The mech under our hands whimpered as we worked to remove shrapnel from his chassis.

"I know." I soothed as I pulled out another chunk from his shoulder, patching the torn circuitry as I went. If we could knock him offline we would have done, but the explosion had polarised electromagnetic fields as it swept over the battlefield. Usually a few tweaks would adjust it back to normal, but his neural circuitry had been hit hard and letting him go into stasis with a fluctuating field was a risk we couldn't take.

:Aid, keep his attention on you.:

:What's wrong?: I asked over the comm., something in his tone sending shivers down my spinal struts.

One of the energon coated hands curled around my leg as he stared up at me, optics pleading. "Will I be ok?"

"You'll be fine." I reassured him as the fingers abandoned my leg to clutch at my hand. I gently unwound his fingers, I needed my hands free.

:Just keep talking to him.: Ratchet said as he shifted, leaning over the mechs chest.

"Didn't think this'd be where I extinguish, on a primitive organic planet in the middle of nowhere."

"You're not going to extinguish."

"No? And I'm a 'Con." I winced as his voice bled into static at the end of the sentence, optics flickering weakly.

:Ratchet!: I whipped my helm up from focusing on the mechs shoulder to see what he was doing. He must have accidentally caught a major energon line for us to be loosing the mech so quickly.

There, I reached across to gather the two ends before a hand curled over mine, stilling me. :Let him go.:

:But.:

:He was beyond saving.: Ratchet's comm. tone was filled with sorrow as the light in the optics went out, the paint greying.

"Why?" I could have reattached the line, could have stopped him from bleeding out.

One red hand brushed across the spark chamber, tugging a shard free that had been buried in the side of the chamber itself. "We couldn't have got that out."

I frowned beneath my blast mask, "but the energon line..."

"It would have taken hours for him to fully extinguish through loss of spark containment as his energy field collapsed, and every moment would have been agony." He lifted his other hand that had been curled into a fist, a laser scalpel sitting innocently in his palm. "Sometimes mercy is all we can give."


	5. First Time in a Berth Together

Continuity: G1 Ratchet & First Aid: Five Firsts

I shared a look with Hoist, both of us pausing in our cleaning as Ratchet stumbled, the lack of recharge catching up to him as he checked up on our patients.

:Your turn.: Hoist said over a private comm. channel to me. My turn to try and tempt him away from his patients and into a recharge berth.

Of course we could just wait until he simply keeled over, but that would mean moving several tons of offline medic as his redundant systems left him deceptively heavy.

"Ratchet." I waited till he acknowledged me as I moved across the room to lay a hand on one energon smeared arm, reminding me that none of us had been able to clean up yet, the tools and medbay being our priority now that our patients had all been shoo'd out or put in stasis.

"You need to recharge."

"Later." He muttered.

"Now." I countered. He always made sure that we got in some recharge time, saying that we could make mistakes when we get tired. Given that he was now into his fourth consecutive shift it was beyond time that he take his own advice. "You're going to miss something soon." I said as I shoved at his arm.

He swayed as his fingers tightened around my arm as his gyros fought to compensate for the abrupt change in weight. "We'll comm. you if anything happens."

He didn't answer, although he did follow when I tugged at his arm, letting himself be guided towards the doors.

:Go with him and make sure he cleans up and refuels without falling into stasis. I don't want to be hauling him out of his own washracks.: Hoist sent with a grin, careful to keep to a private channel.

:Will do.: I said as we ran into an alert looking Wheeljack at the door, the engineer (and part time medical assistant) having been sent to recharge some time last shift.

:Get some recharge of your own Aid, I know you didn't get much, I'll stay with Hoist.:

:Thanks.: I sent back as I opened Ratchet's door, glad that whoever had designed this ship had put living quarters next to the medical wing for its staff so that we didn't have to traverse half the Ark just to rest.

"Aid?" Ratchet asked in confusion as I steered him towards the washrack.

I ran my fingers across his arm, flakes of dried energon and coolant fluttering to the floor.

"Oh." He shook his helm slightly as he stepped into the cleansing solution I had started, leaning against the wall for balance as he groped for his cleaning cloth. "I'll be fine Aid."

"I don't mind." I said as I stepped under the spray, taking the piece of cloth from his hand, his half-sparked attempt to retrieve it not even coming near to me. Hoist was right, if I left him now he'd probably be waking up here in several days time.

Shutting the cleanser off I steadied him as the dryers almost blasted him off his feet, despite not even having the power to blow over a human.

"Just stay there a moment." I said as he sat down heavily on his berth, his optics tracking me as I moved to his storage space rather than leaving.

"Aid?"

"Here." I said as I passed him a cube of highgrade energon. Normally it would be inadvisable to drink highgrade with nothing else in his tanks, but as close to recharge as he was it wouldn't do more than knock him straight into stasis.

The other option was to walk all the way up to the rec room to get a cube from the dispenser but he'd be well offline before I got back.

"Thank you." He said as he emptied the cube.

"You're welcome." I said as I went to take the empty container, only to have my wrist grabbed by his other hand. I yelped as I ended up sprawled along the berth as he collapsed backwards, the empty energon cube clattering away into a corner of the room.

"Teletraan, lights off. Night Aid." He said as he curled around me, his optics dimming as his systems wound down into a peaceful recharge.

Well, this was... different, unexpected, but not unwelcome.

Snuggling into his larger frame I started my own recharge cycle, hoping that it wasn't the recharge deprivation and highgrade alone that had made him want a berthmate for the night.


End file.
